He is the Italian who came to Malta without his knowledge: a young man from Turin had his Facebook photos stolen to create a fake profile of a PN supporter called Robert Dimech.

To his more than 400 Facebook friends, Mr Dimech is an ICT graduate living in the UK, who formed his political opinion “after reading both electoral programmes”.

But the photos used to give his fake Facebook account credibility actually came from the real profile of Renato Piazzolla, an Italian man who seems to have no connection with the island.

Mr Dimech’s account was set up on January 21 when the person behind it posted: “The more I read, and the more I search on Google, I continue to confirm that PL energy proposal is really childish and based on no concrete studies!!!! In the following days I will start explaining why am I saying so...”

As promised, Mr Dimech focused his criticism of the Labour Party on the energy proposal. He even sent messages to Labour’s energy spokesman Konrad Mizzi to demand a copy of a 10-year fixed-price gas supply contract, which was promised but never materialised.

Mr Dimech said Mr Mizzi blocked him from Facebook instead of accepting his “challenge”.

In another post, Mr Dimech urged his Facebook friends not to trust Labour: “It is true that they changed the party emblem, the colour of the ties and all the minor things but it is clear that it is only a cosmetic change. Please a make an appeal to everyone to spread the word that behind the smile of Dr (Joseph) Muscat there is much more, these are amateurs that are still not ready to govern the country! Don’t trust them!”

Questions sent to Mr Dimech and Mr Piazzolla remained unanswered at the time of going to print.

Asked whether any of its officials were involved in this case, the Nationalist Party said: “The PN does not hide behind fake profiles. It has official channels it uses to put forward its message such as mychoice, its app and its press conferences.”